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The Changing Face Of San Francisco’s Bayview District

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – It seems change is the order of the day for many of San Francisco’s neighborhoods.

A trend of soaring real estate prices and a surge of new residents has already changed the city’s Mission District and now it has long-time Bayview residents concerned about their future.

Residents like Al Norman, who fears he will be forced to leave the city and points to a new Peets Coffee shop as a sign of change in the blue-collar 3rd St. corridor.

“It’s not even about Pete’s coffee,” he told KPIX 5. “It’s about what Pete’s Coffee represents. They’re pushing us out – it’s got nothing to do with Pete’s coffee.”

Like Norman, fellow Bayview resident Shamann Walton fears the impact of gentrification on the neighborhood.

“It’s definitely hard to overstate the change, especially up and down the 3rd street corridor,” said Walton, the current president of the San Francisco Board of Education.

Matt Fuller, who is the president of the San Francisco Association of Realtors, calls the Bayview “the last frontier in San Francisco real estate.”

The pace of change has been accelerated by a combination of home prices, location, construction of a light rail line down the 3rd St. corridor and the advent of the tech bus transit system.

“Part of it has been kind of the shift south in the center of gravity of San Francisco real estate,” Fuller said. “People used to want to be in our central or north central neighborhoods as their first choice, now because of Silicon Valley, people would prefer to be on the south side of the city because it will save them 30 minutes on their commute.”

The median price of a Bayview home has jumped from $360,000 to $750,000 today. The latter still considered affordable in the pricey San Francisco real estate market.

“It’s kind of both been the story of transit coming south, and the economic rebirth – or continuing boom – of San Francisco,” Fuller said.

The city is trying to avoid the kind of situation that has evolved in the Mission where new residents have square off against those who have called the neighborhood home for years.

“Nobody is going to be against economic opportunity or economic drivers and jobs,” Walton said. “But what we have to do make sure that opportunity that comes is available to the people who have been here forever.”